Poll: Longest flight in a light single or twin.

Lee D

Well-Known Member
Just for fun/curiosity, I thought we could see what your longest cross country has been in singles or light twins with you as the PIC. . (Not turbo props and jets.)

Up until a few months ago the furthest I had flown was from Salt Lake to Canada or to Denver, Las Vegas, New Mexico etc. (Usually no more than 450 miles one way.)
However, in late February my employer had me and one other CFI fly from Salt Lake to Knoxville to pick up a Seneca for our flight club. We flew out commercially and flew the Seneca home. All together the flight was about 13 hours and 1500 plus nautical miles. (We had nothing but headwinds the whole way home and Senecas are not all that fast anyway. 140 to 150 knots.) But who cares if all the expenses are paid and you are logging twin time? Managed to get a couple of actual ILS approaches too.

We managed to land in each state along the way. Little Rock, AR. Oklahoma City OK. Amarillo TX. (HUGE Runway) Farmington NM. Then home. Great experience.
 
Miles: 2,600 round trip
Time: 25hours +/-
Days flying: Three
Days of trip: Four

Last July 4 weekend my father and I did a 2,600 mile roundtrip from Phoenix to St. Louis and Back in a PA-23 Apache. Total time logged, I think, was around 25 hours. We did a lot of WX avoidance and a lot of landings to check the Radar. It would have been one day each way except on the flight there we got grounded in Erick, OK due to WX. Up early the next morning and a quick 6 hour flight to St. Louis to finish out the outbond leg.

We did it VFR.

Fun trip but I'll go IFR next time (wasn't IA rated at the time).
 
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Fun trip but I'll go IFR next time (wasn't IA rated at the time).

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Butcha will be soon!!
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Longest for me were my flights last month from Kerville, Texas (KERV) to Natchez, Mississippi (KHEZ) and the reverse route back. The two airports are a straight line distance of 413 NM apart, and the ifr airway route I took was 5 NM longer, at 418 NM.

The flight took me about 3 hours 20 minutes to complete in a cessna 182RG. The weather was great the entire way, I only logged .1 actual due to some scattered cumulus I ran into up at 8000 on the way back. To me, the time at cruise really "flies" by. Doesn't sound as exciting as yours, Lee D, but it's the best I can claim for now. I love long flights.
 
My personal longest was from Indianapolis Intl(IND) to Stewart/Newburgh, NY(SWF) - 565 nm (one way) and back to IND in a Bonanza A36 with a Victor Gold engine - don't recall the flight time.


Jason
 
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Butcha will be soon!!

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I want my TWO DOLLARS!
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The longest rip I had was in a PA-28 Archer from John Wayne to Page Arizona then to Pheonix then back to John Wayne. The trip was 858 Nautical Miles and took something like 8 hours.
I remember that it started out as smooth as can be, then when we reached the grand canyon it turned sour. We were getting tossed around like there was no tommorrow. This tossing continued all the way to PAGE, AZ. We landed for two hours got something to eat, checked out a potential house boat that the other pilot wanted to buy, then hoped back in the plane and went to pheonix to pick up a Prop. Got to Pheonix just as the sun was setting. THen hoped back in and followed the 10 all the way back home. I was so dehydrated and dissy from the flight from SNA to Page that I was ready to hop on SWA from Pheonix to go back home.
 
My longest was nothing close to some of your guys, it was in a Warrior. Grand Forks to Mankato, MN then to Watertown, SD and back to Grand Forks. Left at 5 pm and got back at 1 am...6.3 total.
 
Los Angeles (Camarillo), California to Ft. Lauderdale, FL (KFLL) in a Cessna 402C. Stopped in Mesa AZ, Austin TX, and Pensacola FL (St. Patrick's day and the Naval Air Museum, had to take a 2-day Guinness break). That 402C can stay in the air for what seems like forever, we never got it below 1/2 fuel.
 
My longest trip as PIC was from Baltimore(MTN) to Marthas Vineyard. I went from Baltimore to West Bend WI last summer, but I didnt do any of the flying.
 
PA28-181, SLC-BOI-YKM-BFI-ONP-ACV-LLC-SLC. 21 hours roundtrip with about 6.2 actual, woo hoo!

We left on a Monday afternoon, arrived in Seattle late that evening, stayed the night, woke up around 5am Tuesday morning to head back out. Went down through Oregon and CA, cut over to SLC from Arcada and arrived in SLC late that night.

So 21 hours of flying in about a 34 hour period. No auto-pilot but we were able to plug a CD player into the intercom.
 
It seemed longer than it was, but I went from PWK to LaCrosse, WI, to Duluth, MN to Mosinee, WI, back to PWK one day, solo. Ended up with 9.1 hours, 2.1 actual and 3.5 hours of night.

Highlights of this flight included getting lost/disoriented in snow (from tracking a VOR that's useless below 10k), and getting vectors for an unfamiliar backcourse approach in IMC while picking up ice, while ATC loses me on their screen.

I was green at the end of the night.
 
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Does a MD-90 count as a twin?

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For conversation's sake, lets say yes.
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What has been the longest flight for you while flying the MD-90? (You don't have to go through the trouble of looking it up in your log books or anything.)
 
Off the top of my head... hmmm... I flew a -90 from BOS to DFW once and I think there's either an -88 or a -90 leg from DFW to SEA this month too.
 
Well if we're counting jets now - Boston(BOS) nonstop to San Fransico(SFO) 2,384 nm in the Challenger 604 - 5.9 block hours. And that wasn't even the only leg that night!!

Jason
 
One time, back in the old Atari ST days, I set flight sim to "unlimited fuel", pointed east, turned on the autopilot and went to high school. I came back home to see where I was and the damned thing locked over OKK.
 
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One time, back in the old Atari ST days, I set flight sim to "unlimited fuel", pointed east, turned on the autopilot and went to high school. I came back home to see where I was and the damned thing locked over OKK.

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WOW I've heard of long flights... but after four years it's no wonder the damn thing locked up!

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